Fossil Fuel Fascism: When a Dying Industry Tries to Take Democracy With It

There is a phrase that captures something ugly about the world we are now living through.

It sounds extreme. But so is the behaviour it describes. Fossil fuel fascism is what happens when the coal, gas and oil industries begin to lose the economic argument, the scientific argument and the moral argument - and respond by attacking democracy itself.

It’s not simply climate denial. It’s not just lobbying. It’s not even just greenwashing. It’s the hardening of fossil fuel politics into something more nasty and aggressive: disinformation, culture war, attacks on science, intimidation of activists, capture of governments, weakening of environmental laws, and use of state power to protect industries that are cooking the planet. It also thrives on chaos, division and war - because a frightened, divided and exhausted public is easier to distract from the accelerating consequences of global heating.

The Guardian recently described this as part of a global energy power shift. China is racing ahead as an “electrostate”, dominating solar, wind, batteries and EVs, while the US under Trump is retreating into oil, gas, deregulation and fossil-fuel nationalism. The old American oil order is not disappearing quietly. It is fighting back.

This is the key point. Fossil fuel fascism is not a sign of strength. It’s a sign of panic.

For more than a century, fossil fuels shaped global power. Oil built empires. Coal powered industrialisation. Gas was sold as the “cleaner” bridge that would take us safely into the future.

But the future has arrived - and it’s electric. Renewables are no longer the expensive alternative. They’re increasingly the cheapest form of new energy. IRENA found that in 2024, 91 per cent of newly commissioned utility-scale renewable capacity produced power more cheaply than the lowest-cost fossil fuel alternative. Utility-scale solar was 41 per cent cheaper, and onshore wind 53 per cent cheaper, than the cheapest fossil fuel option. Renewables also avoided an estimated US$467 billion in fossil fuel costs in 2024 alone. That changes everything.

Now that clean energy is cheaper, fossil fuel politics can no longer rely on the old argument that coal, oil and gas are necessary for prosperity. So the argument shifts. Suddenly renewables are “woke”. Climate action is “elitist”. EVs are an attack on freedom and emit dangerous radiation. Wind farms are a threat to the nation. Scientists are political enemies. Protesters are extremists. Gas becomes “security”. Coal becomes “sovereignty”. Delay becomes patriotism.

And while we’re pushed from one outrage to the next - culture wars, real wars, manufactured crises and political chaos - the planet keeps heating in the background.

This is how a dying industry disguises self-interest as national interest.

And Australia shouldn’t pretend it’s only an American disease. We have our own version. Wrapped in hi-vis vests and divisive language. We have a political system still deeply influenced by fossil fuel money. We approve new coal and gas projects while claiming to take climate change seriously. We count domestic emissions while pretending exported emissions vanish at the port. We talk about the clean energy transition while expanding the very industries driving climate breakdown. And when communities, scientists, young people, First Nations custodians or climate advocates object, they’re too often treated as obstacles to progress rather than voices of reason.

But fossil fuel fascism will be overcome for one simple reason: it is fighting the future.

The clean energy transition is now powered by technology, economics and public demand. Solar panels, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles and renewable grids are not fringe ideas anymore. They’re infrastructure. They’re jobs. They’re cheaper bills. They’re cleaner air. They’re energy independence.

The International Energy Agency says renewable power capacity is set to grow faster between 2025 and 2030 in more than 80 per cent of countries than it did in the previous five years, with solar accounting for almost 80 per cent of the global increase. The fossil fuel industry can slow the transition. It can corrupt it. It can make it more unjust. It can make the climate damage worse. But it cannot stop the physics, the economics or the moral force of people wanting a liveable future.

So what do we do?

First, we name it. Fossil fuel obstruction is not “balance”. It’s not “pragmatism”. It’s not “keeping the lights on”. When governments approve new fossil fuel projects in a climate emergency, they are choosing to make the crisis worse.

Second, we electrify everything we can. Rooftop solar. Batteries. Efficient homes. Heat pumps. Induction cooking. Electric cars, bikes and buses. Every household, business and community that gets off fossil fuels weakens the political power of the fossil fuel industry.

Third, we stop rewarding climate vandalism. Move banking, superannuation and investments away from companies funding fossil fuel expansion. Ask councils, universities, festivals, galleries and community organisations who sponsors them. Culture matters. Social licence matters.

Fourth, we mobilise and vote like the climate is real. Not as a side issue. Not as a nice-to-have. But as the foundation of economic security, food security, health security and intergenerational justice. For me, that means getting involved in the community-based independents movement to get more people like David Pocock, Sophie Scamps and Kate Chaney elected to our Parliament.

And finally, we refuse despair. Despair is useful to the fossil fuel industry because it turns us citizens into spectators. Hope, properly understood, is not optimism. It’s discipline. It’s action. It’s choosing to fight because the future is still being made.

Fossil fuel fascism is rising because the fossil fuel age is ending. Our job is to make sure it ends democratically, justly and fast.

Guernica by Pablo Picasso is perhaps the world’s most-famous anti-Fascist artwork.